Actions by congressional Democrats and the attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford—Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser—probably influenced Ford’s account of the events, according to a memo drafted by Rachel Mitchell, the former sex-crimes prosecutor who questioned Ford.
According to the memo, Ford communicated with Democrats and their staffs as the details of the accounts she provided became increasingly specific. Mitchell doesn’t offer a detailed explanation for her conclusion and instead points senators to a timeline showing that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was aware of Ford’s allegations weeks before Feinstein’s staff interviewed Kavanaugh on Aug. 28.
Ford provided her most specific account of the events after Feinstein’s staff interviewed Kavanaugh. Feinstein’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In the original text to The Washington Post tip-line on July 6, Ford said the alleged incident happened in the “mid-1980s.” She changed the date to “early 80s” in her letter to Feinstein on July 30.
After Ford retained a lawyer recommended by Feinstein’s staff, she took a polygraph on Aug. 7, when she further narrowed the date to a “high school summer in early 80’s.” Ford crossed out “summer” on the statement, but didn’t explain why.
Ford provided the most narrow timeframe—“summer of 1982”—to The Washington Post in the article published on Sept. 16.
According to Mitchell, Ford couldn’t explain how she narrowed the date. Mitchell does note that Feinstein’s staffers had interviewed Kavanaugh two weeks prior and asked him “numerous questions about confidential background information.”
Similar to Ford’s varied accounts of the date, she provided different statements regarding the number and identities of the people of the party. In Ford’s earliest account to the Washington Post tipline on July 6, she listed Patrick “PJ” Smyth as a bystander and didn’t list Smyth’s good friend, Leland Keyser.
In the Sept. 16 Post article, she said there were four boys and herself at the party, but changed her prior story to say that Smyth was not a bystander. By the time she testified before the committee on Sept. 27, Ford changed her account again, saying that four boys, Keyser, and herself were at the party. A timeline provided by Mitchell shows that Ford was in regular contact with Democrats as her story evolved.
Spokespeople for committee Republicans, including Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.), didn’t return a request for comment.
Mitchell ultimately concluded that no “reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee.”
“A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,” Mitchell wrote in the memo.
Mitchell reasoned that a case would be hard to prove because Ford offered inconsistent accounts about when the alleged assault occurred, struggled to identify Kavanaugh by name, forgot key details about the night in question, and had trouble remembering key recent events, among other issues. None of the witnesses named by Ford corroborated her allegation.
Mitchell’s memo became public two days after President Donald Trump ordered the FBI to open a supplementary background investigation into the claims against Kavanaugh. The White House gave the bureau a week to wrap up the probe.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee dismissed Democrats’ calls for an FBI probe for weeks, saying that the bureau considered the matter closed. After the committee advanced Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate on a party-line vote on Sept. 28, three swing-vote senators requested a week-long FBI investigation before voting on the nominee. The committee complied and called on the White House to order a probe.
